International Journal of Town Planning and Management

Vol. 2: Issue 1
www.journalspub.com

Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming Technology in

Agropolis
A.N. Sarkar*
Ex-Senior Professor (International Business) & Dean (Research), Asia-Pacific Institute of
Management, New Delhi, India

Abstract
The concept of Urban Agriculture dates back 1915; whereas the Vertical Farming is
relatively a recent concept. With the alarming pace of globalization, industrialization and
urbanization there is visibly a huge population flux in the major cities with meteoric rise of
demand for healthy food to feed the teeming millions. This has prompted the scientists to
evolve alternate farming approaches to fill-in the gaps. The recent innovations and
technological breakthrough have given rise to what are currently widely known as urban
agriculture, vertical farming, roof-top farming, hydroponics. The paper is dedicated to
discuss some of recent innovations made as well as technological breakthroughs in the field
of urban agriculture and vertical farming in Agropolis.

Keywords: agropolis, urban agriculture, vertical farming

*Corresponding Author
E-mail: ansarkar1@gmail.com

URBAN AGRICULTURE: THE Examples in this regard include roof-top

DEFINITION
Urban agriculture is “the growing,
processing and distributing of food and
other products through intensive plant
cultivation and animal husbandry in and
around cities” .[1] City farming and urban
farming are sometimes used
synonymously with urban agriculture.
Community gardening is a similar idea,
although it often refers specifically to
production for gardeners’ own use rather
than for sale.
The term “urban agriculture” was
associated with several different
definitions and meanings. ANR describes
urban agriculture to include beyond that
which is strictly for home consumption or
educational purposes, production,
distribution and marketing of food and
other products within the cores of
metropolitan areas and at their edges.
agriculture and horticulture, ornamental
creepers, hydro/aquaponics, herbal
gardens, vertical agriculture community
supported agriculture, and family farms
located in metropolitan greenbelts
(Adapted from the American Planning
Association, 2011).
Urban agricultureand urban farming
bradly include urban gardening around a
village, town, or eco-city .[1] Urban
agriculture can also livestock, piggery,
poultry, fishery, apiculture, fresh-water
aquaculture, agro-forestry, and horti-
pastoral system. These activities occur
in peri-urban areas as well, and peri-urban
agriculture may have different
[2]
characteristics . Urban agriculture can
reflect varying levels of economic and
social development. In the global north, it
often takes the form of a social movement
for sustainable communities, where

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Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming Technology in Agropolis
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organic growers, ‘foodies,’ and ‘locavores’
form social networks founded on a shared
ethos of nature and community holism.
These networks can evolve over a period
of time with formal or informal
institutional support, and thus be
integrated into local town planning system
as a ‘transition town’ movement with good
governance for sustainable urban
development in agriculture sector.
URBAN FARMING: THE CONCEPT
There are typically four kinds of urban
farms [3] that are widely known in
literature. To begin with, Institutional
farms are farms that are run by a school,
prison or similar, and that have a joint
objective to provide recreation and to
produce food. Community gardens are
gardens that are taken care of by
volunteering residents with a social,
recreational or self-sufficiency objective.
Community farms are farms that typically
are run by some kind of non-profit-
organization with a social objective.
Finally, commercial farms are farms run
for-profit though some of these
organizations have a not-for-profit branch
working in symbiosis with the profit
driven operation. In its essence, urban
farming is plant cultivation and husbandry
in and around cities .[4]More specifically, it
is “a complex system encompassing a
spectrum of interests” .[5] Its traditional
nexus is comprised by the activities
associated with production, processing and
marketing of food, as well as its
distribution and consumption. Meanwhile,
there are many other benefits and services
which have been acknowledged and
documented in conjunction with urban
farming.
These include business entrepreneurship, l
urban sanitation, health and well-being of
the community, restoration and
conservation of waste land into aerable
and productive lands, storm water
harvesting and management and last but
not the least landscape beautification .[5,3]
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The literature has yet to explore the logic
behind the commercial urban farms. Many
commercial urban farmers believe that
lower transport costs and increased
revenues for fresher produce will make
them competitive in relation to
conventional supply chains, even though
the land costs increase with population
density. In sharp contrast to community
gardens, community farms and
institutional gardens farmers, commercial
urban farmers need to pay their employees
competitive salaries and also generate
acceptable returns on investment
Any food we produce at our homes is food
that is not part of the agricultural industry,
which is a huge consumer of natural
resources. Urban farming today is no
longer a hobby practiced by a few
dedicated enthusiasts growing food for
them. It has become a truly innovative
field in which pioneering ventures are
creating real, robust, and scalable
solutions for growing food for large
numbers of people directly at the point of
consumption. This means producing the
food on our plates makes more than
twice the impact on the environment as
fueling our cars or heating our homes.
In urban agriculture every effort is made
to reduce the cost in production,
processing, transport distribution and
marketing by doing away with the
middle-man by growing local food in the
periphery of the city or by resorting to
vertical farming to optimize space and
maximize profit margin. Costly cool-
chains are avoided to reduce inventory
and storage costs. Therefore, the farmer
also enjoys a competitive advantage in
delivering truly fresh, tasty, and nutrient-
rich food to customers’ doorsteps. Urban
farming also helps cut way back on food
waste – which currently represents about
one-third of all food produced
worldwide, reports the United Nations’.
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 International Journal of Town Planning and Management
Urban agriculture is the practice of
cultivating food crops and raising livestock
in cities i.e. Agropolis. It broadly differs in
terms of concepts and application
approaches from traditional agriculture
because it is integrated into densely
populated areas and must address some
unique challenges such as city ordinances
and lack of arable land and open space. In
the U.S., urban agriculture has become
increasingly popular and is referred to in a
variety of ways, e.g., urban gardening,
urban homesteading, and edible
landscaping.
Numerous community organizations are
drawing on urban agriculture to address an
array of environmental, social, and
economic issues that include concerns
about the current food system, food
security, and “green job” creation. More
specifically, although California is the
largest food-producing state in the country
(CDFA 2011), many residents in cities like
Oakland and Richmond live in what are
called “food deserts,” defined as places
lacking access to fresh produce and food
(UCANR and UC Small Farm Program,
2008). The Bay Area is at the forefront of
efforts to transform cities into food-
producing landscapes. San Francisco and
Oakland are adopting urban agriculture as
a permanent component of their City’s
General Plan. Outdoor irrigation accounts
for approximately 60% of urban water
consumption in California [6] and therefore
reducing inefficient outdoor use is a key
component of many strategies to reduce
urban water use.
Moreover, municipal water supplies are
typically much more expensive than
agricultural water supplies and also may
be more energy-intensive, as municipal
water has been treated to drinking water
standards. Thus, efficient use of municipal
water supplies can have multiple benefits
from helping water agencies to meet state
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water conservation and greenhouse gas
reduction targets to reducing costs to water
users; which in turn can be profitably
harnessed in developing urban agriculture
to economic and environmental advantage.
AGROPOLIS: THE NEW FACE OF
URBAN AGRICULTURE
While seeking collaboration with NASA,
one might even say it launched urban
agriculture out of this world, and into the
future. The idea is called Agropolis, a
combination grocery store, restaurant, and
farm all in one building, employing the
most advanced technologies in
hydroponic, aeroponic, and aquaponic
farming. As it stands, Agropolis is still just
a mere idea, with little more than some
cool graphics to back it up. But regardless
of all thyese, Agropolis ushers forth a new
wave of thinking about urban food
systems. The team behind the Agropolis
concept proposes that this new generation
of store would be an ecosystem unto itself,
a finely tuned orchestra of parts in balance,
which would not only be totally
environmentally sustainably and friendly,
but also just plain producing the freshest
food around.
According to the vision of Agropolis, a
customer would walk into a store that is
covered in green. Vegetables growing on
the walls as far as the eye can see. And
below the floors one would see tilapia
swimming, working in tandem with
vegetables in an aquaponic system. For
instance, you would buy a tomato that was
literally just picked, from a plant that you
can see in front of you. The store would
bring a whole new meaning to local, and
one-up the notion of hyper local, since all
the food available to eat or buy would
have traveled zero miles from the farm to
the store.
Agropolis is not a virtual proposition but a
ground reality with defined programme
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Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming Technology in Agropolis
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contents and measurable with growth
parameters. This has a vast potential to
create innovative productive base with
future prospects of scaling up both
horizontally and vertically with visible
economic gains to the farming community
with god institutional structure and
governance. While urban agriculture has
come a long way, incorporating creativee
and innovative ideas and state-of-the-Art
technologies, to allow it to expand on a
large and global scale it may be time think
of something as futuristic and high-tech as
Agropolis.
According to the future vision of
Agropolis, a customer would walk into a
store that is covered in green. Vegetables
growing on the walls as far as the eye can
see. And below the floors one would see
tilapia swimming, working in tandem with
vegetables in an aquaponic system. You
would buy a tomato that was literally just
picked, from a plant that you can see in
front of you. The store would bring a
whole new meaning to local, and one-up the
notion of hyper local, since all the food
available to eat or buy would have traveled
zero miles from the farm to the store. It all
sounds grand, and more than a little space-
age. But the challenge given to the team
that came up with Agropolis was not
entirely outside reality: Create a farm
without relying on arable land. As the
Earth's healthy soil and other resources
dwindle, it may not be out of the realm of
possibility that a system like Agropolis be
needed, particularly in urban areas. And
while urban agriculture has come a long
way, incorporating all kinds of creative
and innovative ideas and technologies, in
order to make it work on a large and global
scale it may be time for something as
futuristic and high-tech as Agropolis.
Cities are distinct administrative and social
units and geographical entities with clearly
defined boundaries. As city people we
need to look beyond the urban perimeter to
better understand the global impacts of a
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A.N.Sarkar
resource hungry, urbanising world. Cities
absorb the bulk of the world’s natural
resources, and their solid, liquid and
gaseous wastes are carelessly dumped
somewhere in nature. Cities urgently need
to reduce their environmental impacts and
ecological footprints, and to contribute to
restoring damaged ecosystems. Locally,
we need to create and protect pleasant,
green urban environments, but we also
need to revive urban and peri-urban
forestry and agriculture, accelerate the
deployment of renewable energy systems,
make effective use of urban wastes and
facilitate the growth of new, green
economies (Figure 1).
Furthermore we also need to better
understand our responsibilities, not only to
the local and global environments on
which we depend, but also ultimately to
future generations. They want to live on a
planet that has not been wrecked by those
alive today. Here let us introduce the
concept of ‘Agropolis’, drawing on the
work of the 19th century geographer
Heinrich von Thünen, who wrote a book
called ‘The Isolated State’. In this book he
describes the ‘embeddedness’ of towns
and cities in their local landscapes. One
may then move on to look at the city that
we inhabit today, ‘Petropolis’, which is
defined by fossil fuel dependence and
long-distance supplies with impacts right
across the planet.
In addition to fossil fuels, an urbanising
world now utilises the bulk of the world’s
biological resources, including timber and
forest resources of all kinds. This is a
serious concern. We urgently need to find
ways of reducing these resource
throughputs whilst helping to regenerate
the world’s depleted ecosystems. Recently,
there has been much talk about the
‘triumph’ of the city: that solution to the
world is environmental and climate
problems can most easily be implemented
in cities because, as places where most
people live closely together, they have the
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potential to make efficient use of
resources. In this context, our individual
contribution to urban resource
consumption becomes critically important.
Currently, cities have an essentially linear,
unidirectional metabolism, with resources
flowing through the urban system without
much concern about their origin, or about
the destination of waste.
. malnutrition have become widespread in
In Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital city, urban
agriculture is gaining more popularity and
support of thye government as well as
local agencies; but its rapid urban
expansion is leading to greater competition
over the land use pattern, such that this
practice is being increasingly threatened
by conversion to non-agricultural urban
uses. The quality and safety of foodstuffs
grown in urban areas is of growing
concern to both consumers and producers
in developing country cities such as Hanoi,
where a large share of the city’s food
supply is grown within the urban area.
Government support has encouraged urban
producers to modernize and invest in safer
growing practices.
In recent years, considerable interest has
been shown in the practice of urban
agriculture (UA) as poverty and
the cities of many developing countries.
With increasing numbers of rural poor
migrating to cities, more urban dwellers
are being born into impoverished families
and in some cases not-so-poor families are
slipping below the poverty line .[7,8,9]
Numerous studies have shown that UA can
play a key role in providing valuable food
security and income generation among
urban households.[10-13]

Fig. 1. Agropolis – the Preindustrial, Traditional Town Defined by Reliance on Food and
Fuel Wood Supplies from its Local Hinterland.

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF URBAN
AGRICULTURE
Much has been written about the various
ways in which Urban Agriculture (UA)
can contribute to food security and
livelihood sustainability among the
world’s impoverished urban population.
Urban subsistence production can lead to
an immediate reduction in hunger and an
improvement in nutrition .[14] In Mwanza,
Tanzania, even the wealthier household
heads face income insecurity and often
plant crops to ensure family food security
during lean times.[15] Critically, UA can be
seen as a form of empowerment for
underprivileged people, in that it affords
poor people an opportunity to increase
control over their own nutritional intake.
This can be particularly significant for
women, who may have traditionally been
excluded from food production activities.
This may be well understood from the
findings of a study conducted in Harare,
Zimbabwe (Mbiba, 2005). The reported
evidence showed that women produced 60
percent of urban food production, the
majority of which was consumed by
household members. In this regaqrd, ,[15]
however, suggested that an increase in UA
in some cities may have actually inflicted
upon the fiscal burden on women, in
becoming a low-income trap that mossly
imprisons unskilled women workers and
land-less labourers at large. The important
issue of the role of women in UA has been
explored in considerable detail elsewhere
.[16]
UA can also have an impact on energy use,
which is a major element in the drive to
achieving more sustainable cities.
Cultivating produce in close proximity to
areas of consumption can result in
significant energy savings, by reducing
energy expenditure on refrigeration,
transport and storage. Furthermore, with
markets close by, urban farmers can adjust
their production strategies to meet
changing market demands and to supply
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A.N.Sarkar
high-value and perishable items. UA can
also have a multiplier effect, in generating
industrial activity associated with
agricultural inputs, storage, transportation,
marketing and food processing. In
countries that export a large proportion of
their agricultural output to earn foreign
exchange, it is suggested that UA can help
to feed the cities, whilst rural farmers
concentrate on export production.[17]
There are also various health concerns
associated with UA, which is frequently
affected by untreated waste and other
pollutants that are discharged directly into
water courses, onto land, or into the air.
The contamination of soils and water
courses can lead to dangerously high
heavy metal and toxin levels in
agricultural produce. Maconachie and
Binns (2006) [18]consider the case of Kano,
northern Nigeria, where they identified a
serious environmental and health risk from
high levels of toxins being discharged into
water courses from tanneries and factories
.[19] Air pollution also has the potential to
reduce both the yield and nutritional
quality of crops. In many cases, UA is
practiced close to roads, where exhaust
fumes and runoff from roads can
contaminate crops.[20] This problem can be
reduced by planting pollution resistant
plants alongside roads and close to other
air pollutant sources. However, the
planning and infrastructure to make this
happen does not exist in most countries
.[20]
BENEFITS OF URBAN
AGRICULTURE
Scholars of urban planning, public health,
community development and natural
sciences fields have dramatically expanded
the literature on urban agriculture over the
past decade, citing a wide range of
benefits. A recent report commissioned by
the Funder’s Network for Smart Growth
and Livable Communities provides a
summary of the potential benefits of urban
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 International Journal of Town Planning and Management
agriculture, drawing from a number of
scholarly sources and interviews with
experts. Those benefits include: productive
reuse of contaminated land; storm-water
runoff reduction; air pollution reduction;
increased biodiversity; increased access to
fruits and vegetables; increased
opportunities for public health
programming; increased community
economic security; increased social
interactions among diverse populations;
increased opportunities for place-based
community programmes; possible reuse of
vacant land that can cut down on trash
accumulation, illegal dumping, fires, etc. ;
decreased public land-maintenance costs;
capitalization of underused resources;
increase property values; multiplier effect
of attracting new food-related businesses.
These benefits cover a lot of ground and
the evidence to support these claims is
based primarily on case-study examples
rather than large-scale evaluations. Urban
farming is a fast growing trend and has
captured the imaginations of many
entrepreneurs, investors, scientist and
progressive farmers. It is often portrayed
in sweeping terms as a panacea for the
problems of the inner-city poor, with urban
farms held in the same esteem as
community centers, city parks, or public
libraries.
VERTICAL FARMING: CONCEPT
AND TECHNOLOGY
Vertical Farming is a very new concept of
farming in urban habitat; wherein because
of the farming space limitation the obvious
choice is to move vertically to optimize
space and solar interception; and these are
then integrated with other
structures/superstructures using innovative
architecture and designs. The modern idea
of vertical farming uses controlled-
environment agriculture (CEA)
technology, where all environmental
factors can be controlled and manipulated
for future expansion an, diversification and
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scaling up of the capacity for future. These
facilities utilize artificial control of light,
environmental control (viz. humidity,
temperature, gases.) and fertigation. Some
vertical farms use techniques similar to
greenhouses, where natural sunlight can be
augmented with artificial lighting and
metal reflectors. [21, 22]
The term "vertical farming" was coined by
Gilbert Ellis Bailey in 1915 in his
book Vertical Farming. His use of the
term differs from the current meaning—he
wrote about farming with a special interest
in soil origin, its nutrient content and the
view of plant life as "vertical" life forms,
specifically relating to root structures
underground. Modern usage refers to
skyscrapers using some degree of natural
light. Mixed-use skyscrapers were
proposed and built by architect Ken
Yeang. Yeang proposes that instead of
hermetically sealed mass-produced
agriculture that plant life should be
cultivated within open air, mixed-use
skyscrapers for climate control and
consumption. Plantagon is building the
world's first industrial-scale
multifunctional vertical farm
[23]
in Linköping, Sweden (1912) .
Vertical farming according to Despommier
discounts the value of natural landscape in
exchange for the idea of "skyscraper as
spaceship." Plant life is mass-produced
within hermetically sealed, artificial
environments that have little to do with the
outside world. The vertical farm is
designed to be sustainable, and to enable
nearby inhabitants to work at the farm.
Despommier's concept of the vertical farm
emerged in 1999 at Columbia University.
It promotes the mass cultivation of plant
life for commercial purposes in
skyscrapers (Venkataraman, 2008).[24]
Verticrops grown under Vertical Farming
come to us from the world of kick- starter.
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Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming Technology in Agropolis A.N.Sarkar
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The main proprietary idea behind this
automated system involves utilizing a
closed loop of suspended growth trays that
travel along a conveyor belt. As they
traverse the system, computers optimize
the plants for temperature, light, nutrients
and water. Optimal conditions and precise
rationing means no energy in the growth
process goes to waste and the food itself
remains a quality edible, safer than your
average pesticide ridden crops. If we do
not solve this problem soon, humanities
insatiable hunger is sure to ruin the
ecological balance of our planet, if not
wipe out our species itself. That being
said, with all these capable minds at work
trying to solve the worlds impending food
crisis, there is hope that we can have a
future in which every human can be
provided with adequate daily nutrients, in
the most environmentally sustainable way
possible. Growing crops in vertical farms
in the heart of cities is said to be a greener
way to produce food. But the idea is still
unproven.[25]

Fig. 2. Inside View of a Commercial Vertical Farming Unit Harvesting Green Herbs
(Verticrops).

When you run out of land in a crowded
city, the solution is obvious: build
upwards. This simple trick makes it
possible to pack huge numbers of homes
and offices into a limited space such as
Hong Kong, Manhattan or the City of
London. Mankind now faces a similar
problem on a global scale. The world's
population is expected to increase to 9.1
billion by 2050, according to the UN.
Feeding all those people will mean
increasing food production by 70%,
according to the UN's Food and
Agriculture Organisation, through a
combination of higher crop yields and an
expansion of the area under cultivation.
But the additional land available for
cultivation is unevenly distributed, and

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much of it is suitable for growing only a

few crops. So why not create more
agricultural land by building upwards?
Such is the thinking behind vertical
farming. The idea is that skyscrapers
filled with floor upon floor of orchards and
fields, producing crops all year round, will
sprout in cities across the world. As well
as creating more farmable land out of thin
air, this would slash the transport costs and
carbon-dioxide emissions associated with
moving food over long distances.

It would also reduce the spoilage that

inevitably occurs along the way, says
Dickson Despommier, a professor of
public and environmental health at
Columbia University in New York who is
widely regarded as the progenitor of
vertical farming, and whose recently
published book, “The Vertical Farm”, is a
manifesto for the idea. According to the
UN's Population Division, by 2050 around
70% of the world's population will be
living in urban areas. Farm life typically
calls to mind sprawling fields of plants in
neat rows, dotted with bent-over bodies
and heavy diesel-guzzling equipment. The
world is rapidly changing, though, and so
too is the face of agriculture. As the
world's population booms and many
people move to cities, a new generation of
farms is sprouting up in bustling urban
centers. New agricultural techniques are
bringing crop yields indoors and, in some
cases, underground in an effort to produce
more food on a faster timeline with less
energy and space.
Fig. 3. Repurposed Eaves Trough in a
Vertical Garden.
Fig. 4. A Snapshot of a Typical Vertical
Farm Architecture.
Fig. 5. Gallery: Incredible High-tech
Urban Farms.
Over the last few years, the concept of the
urban vertical has captured the imagination
of many. The most recent and prolific
advocate of skyscraper agriculture appears
to be Dickson Despommier of Columbia
Medical School and School of Public
Health, who has lectured extensively on
the topic. However, utopian visions of
vertical farming have prompted pragmatic
debate on the economic and technological
feasibility of such a food production
system. Until important technical hurdles
of growing food in large, multistory
buildings with aquaponics, hydroponics
and other greenhouse technologies are
overcome, farming will remain grounded
in simpler methodologies (From Skies to
Soil: A Brief Review of Urban Farms.[26]

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Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming Technology in Agropolis
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Other urban farms, like vertical farms, use
height to maximize growth space in cities.
Many use hydroponics—growing crops in
a medium other than soil, like in water—or
aquaponics—using a symbiotic
relationship between fish (for their
nutritious waste) and plants (for their
waste filtration) to grow food. The idea
has been gaining wider cognizance and
spread quickly with proposed buildings
underway all around the world, like
in Japan and Wyoming. There is a vertical
farm going up in Sweden called
the Plantagon. This futuristic building,
expected to be finished by the end of 2015,
has tracks that allow plants to travel up
and down the building to maximize
sunlight exposure and to make harvesting
much easier.
The building will produce between 300–
500 tons of food a year in a 400 square
meter space. The CEO, Hans Hassle,
envisions his business as not only
environmentally responsible because of its
commitment to corporate responsibility,
but also as a way to get young people
interested in becoming farmers. Another
vertical farm is underway in Chicago
called ‘The Plant’. The plant looks to
resolve Chicago’s food desert problem that
has left some city dwellers without access
to grocery stores or fresh produce. The
building was once a meatpacking plant and
has since been converted into a closed loop
system where fish, plants, and even a
Kombucha tea, a fermented drink, brewery
use each other’s waste products to grow.
The system even includes office spaces for
local businesses to lease.
An anaerobic digester takes any waste
products unable to be used and converts
them into a sludge used to make fertilizer.
The anaerobic digester combined with a
proposed heat and power system will
eventually run. The Plant on net-zero
energy and run completely off the grid.
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NEW PINK FACE OF VERTICAL
LED FARMING
Indoor vertical farms are on the rise,
thanks partly to new high efficiency LED
growing lights that cut electricity costs to
the bone. LED farming translates into new
opportunities for sitting year-round hyper
local, organic farm-to-table operations,
especially if you throw in an assist from
wind or solar energy. Global lighting
powerhouse Philips has just partnered up
with the indoor vertical farmer and LED
fan Green Sense Farms in a new R&D
venture that could accelerate the LED
farming trend, so let us take a look and see
what they have got cooking .[27]
GREEN SENSE FARMS LED
FARMING
Indiana based Green Sense Farms bills
itself as the largest indoor, commercial,
vertical farm in the US. Located in the
Chicago area, the company has a local
market potential of 20,000,000, given its
calculation of an average 75 food-miles
from farm to table. The company also has
a farm-to-table deadline goal of 24 hours.
The cost of energy for lighting has been
holding the indoor farming market in
check, but Green Sense illustrates what the
bottom line potentials are once that factor
is mitigated. The company’s operation
already uses 1/10 the resources of outdoor
farming in terms of water, land, and
fertilizer. For those of you to whom
organic means chemical-free, the
controlled indoor environment also
enables Green Sense to grow its crops
without harmful pesticides or herbicides.
Serving a local market means no
preservatives, either. The potential for
reducing greenhouse gas emissions related
to transportation is another plus. A couple
of other advantages of a closed system are
the elimination of nutrient-loaded runoff,
and the potential for recycling water and
nutrients. Green Sense illustrates another
key advantage of indoor LED farming,
which is its adaptability to a wide range of
landscapes and conditions. LED farms
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 International Journal of Town Planning and Management
could also be viable in environments that
are just too weird for conventional outdoor
or greenhouse farming. That includes
Fig. 6. LED Vertical Farming- A Philips Model Project.
PHILIPS AND GREEN SENSE
Philips has a jump on the LED commercial
lighting market given its creatively
aggressive pursuit of the US high
efficiency lighting market for household
use. That market was recently kick-started
by new federal efficiency standard that
were passed under the Bush
Administration and were phased in under
the Obama Administration. The new
regulations effectively phased out the 100-
year-old technology behind conventional
incandescent bulbs. In the commercial
lighting market, that industry support for
new technology has been rippling out
across multiple sectors such as car
manufacturing as well as agriculture. The
new partnership pairs Philips’s experience
in horticultural lighting (apparently all the
way back to 1936) and LED technology
with Green Sense’s vertical hydroponic
indoor farming model in an R&D venture
that is expected to use 85 percent less
energy than conventional indoor grow
lights. The energy savings is just for
starters. Aside from using less energy, the
partners aim to increase yield by using
fine-tuned, tailor made “light recipes” that
are specific to Green Sense’s produce. The
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underground and space based LED
farming .[28]
idea is to achieve from 20 to 25 harvests
per year. As a test bed, the project is
already off to a commercial scale start.
Green Sense’s newly renovated growing
area of 1 million cubic feet has a total of
fourteen growing towers that are each 25
feet tall. This farming method allows them
to harvest 20-25 times a year by using
‘light recipes’ using LED Technology with
Green Sense’s vertical hydroponic indoor
farming model in an R&D venture
optimized for their produce and uses 85
percent less energy.[29]
HYPER-EFFICIENT LED FARMING
FOR HYPER-LOCAVORES
Green Sense also expects the project to
lead to the kind of hyper-efficiencies that
would make on site vertical farms a cost
effective way for large institutions to
procure fresh produce year ’round. That
would include academic institutions,
health care centers, and military
installations for starters. Notwithstanding
its potential for high energy efficiency,
indoor farming is highly exposed to
interruptions in energy supply. Until
recently, that would have precluded a
reliance on wind or solar power. However,
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as the wind and solar markets have been
surging, so has the development of fuel
cells, flow batteries, and other large scale
on site energy storage technologies that
provide security against grid disruptions
and are ideal for storing intermittent
energy sources, namely wind and solar .[27]
ROOFTOP URBAN AGRICULTURE:
AQUAPONIC FARM IN BASEL FOR
URBAN FARMERS.
Roof-Top Urban Agriculture’s basic
designs consist of using a harmonious and
synthesized blend of large, flat,
homogeneous and unused industrial
rooftops that offer great possibilities to
install urban farms and provide food
within the city. Industrial areas building
codes normally do not constrain heights,
especially if this is integrated with vertical
farming so that farming activities are a
concrete opportunity to capitalize the
unused industrial rooftop spaces. Urban
farming has a lot to do with the use of
unexpressed potential of the city space
which may not be in great abundance. It is
a tool to turn them productive and
economically viable as well as sustainable.

Fig. 7. Aquaponics, Simplified, Courtesy of Urban Farmers Ltd.

Fig. 8. The Aquaponic Rooftop Farm Designed for Urban Farmers in Basel.

The aquaponic rooftop farm designed device to grow the city. It is a generic
for Urban Farmers in Basel consists of a architecture that consists of two pre-fab
strategic design to make that happen. The modules that correspond to the two main
farm is precisely conceived as an urban feature of the farming program: the

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greenhouse for the production of fish and
vegetables, and the containers for all the
other activities, administration, storage,
dressing rooms, etc. Both modules can be
“dropped” on the rooftop and be organized
in different layouts according to the needs,
size and other specificity of the site. In
other words it is a generic building for a
specific need: to engage the possibility to
grow food on top of any flat industrial
building.

Fig. 9. Two Prefab Modules Connected to Roof-Top of an Industrial Building

to Grow Vertical Crops.

Fig. 10. The Modular Architecture of an Urban Farmers Rooftop Farm

to Grow Fish and Vegetables.

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Fig. 11. Aquaponic Industrial Unit to Grow Fish and Vegetables.

Photo Credits: © Monica Tarocco, 2013.

.
Fig. 12. Aquaponic Industrial Unit to Grow Vegetables.
Photo Credits: © Monica Tarocco, 2013.

The architecture consists in the
organization of the program into the
modular layout that these two simple
elements can offer. A third element,
namely the fire security staircase, is
needed to be attached to the existing
building for direct rooftop security
evacuation. The Urban Farmers rooftop
farm consists of a 400 square meters
industrial installation able to grow fish and
vegetables thanks to the so called
aquaponic technique; consisting of a
system in which fish nourish the
vegetables and the vegetables clean the
water for the fish. Fish and vegetables
lives in a balanced environment. This
project investigates the possibility to
stretch this analogy between the farm and
the city itself and overcome the historical
dichotomy between city and country side.
ROOFTOP GARDENS AND
GROCERY STORES
Rooftop gardens are famously known to
provide food, cooling, and numerous other
benefits for buildings and owners. New
developments however, aim to turn
rooftop gardens into a business model as

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 International Journal of Town Planning and Management
well, especially for the food market.
Grocery stores that aim to use rooftop
gardens for food sources could be an
emerging trend for the food industry. With
rooftop gardens, grocery stores can help
sell organic food, reap urban agricultural
benefits, and prove that sustainability has
market value.
As of right now, this type of sustainable
business model has been implemented by
Whole Foods Market, a supermarket chain
with stores in the US, Canada, and the UK.
In 2013, Whole Foods Market opened a
whole new store in Lynnfield, MA with a
rooftop greenhouse, which provides
organic food for customers. Around
17,000 square feet, this greenhouse will
reduce the reliance on outside resources,
reducing transportation costs and chemical
Fig. 13. The 20,000 Square Foot Rooftop Garden at Whole Foods Market in Brooklyn,
New York.
HYDROPONICS IN VERTICAL
FARMING
Hydroponics is a subset of hydro-culture
or aquatic culture with the provision to
apply scientifically administered plant
nutrients over the life-cycle of the nurtured
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emissions. In addition, it has the ability to
bring the concept of organic food to more
people, and hopefully foster increased
interest and support among the entire
population. The greenhouse will also
reduce the need for energy costs, due to
insulation. The rooftop garden also counts
as a green roof, which are roofs that
provide environmental and
economic benefits through their
sustainable design. This aspect is also
appealing to future implementers, due to
its cost savings. Provided that
implementation of the rooftop garden is
aimed to maximize sustainable benefits,
they have additional benefits aside from
business. With rooftop gardens, grocery
stores can also implement green roofs in
order to cut down on costs used to pay for
energy and water resources.
plants and is a method of growing plants
using mineral nutrient solutions, in water,
without soil. The word hydroponics
technically means working water,
stemming from the Latin words "hydro"
meaning water, and "ponos" meaning
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__________________________________________________________________________________________
labour. Many different civilizations from
the beginning of time have relied on
hydroponics for growing plants, such as
the early Mexican and Egyptian
civilizations. However, recently growing
hydroponically has grown in popularity
and use across many different markets [30]
In hydroponic system water is re-
circulated which allows for great
efficiency, often more than 90% efficiently
on water consumption. The vertical design
in vertical farming system allows for a
higher density of plants in a much smaller
footprint (http://www.instructables.com/id/
Vertical-Hydroponic-Farm/). With a space
less than 5' x 5' we are growing 160 plants.
Vertical hydroponics lends itself very well
to leafy green vegetables such as lettuces
(romaine, boston bib, spring mix) ,
cabbages (red and green), herbs (basil,
cilantro, mint, dill, chives), spinach, kale
(dwarf curly variety), broccoli and
petunias.[31] In combination with
greenhouses, it is high technology and
capital intensive. Nutrient rich waste from
the fish tanks is used to irrigate and
fertilize the hydroponically cultivated
vegetables. In addition to the water, the
plants need carbon dioxide, oxygen,
nutrients and sunshine.
Hydroponics can be an ideal commercial
business if managed correctly with right
expectations. The investment return is also
very encouraging. Duration of yield is also
very short as compared to traditional
cultivation. Hydroponics makes use of
crafty facilities, resource-efficient and
cost-effective cultures and systems to
allow effective use of land, nutrient, water
and labour in a comfortable and sanitary
working condition. The prevailing
irrigation facility in our country does not
support the traditional, sustainable and
lucrative agriculture in areas of drought
and poverty. Hydroponics system of
agriculture consumes 8 to 10% of water
required for any other form of agriculture.
Hydroponics also increases the yield
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A.N.Sarkar
drastically. For e.g., 1% increase in yield
correlates to 0.72% reduction in
poverty.[32]. Overall hydroponics farming
has enormous advantages like water
conservation, variety of un-seasonal crop
cultivation without using pesticides, ease
of maintenance, protective from adverse
climate, etc., for those who are residing in
cities. Compared with conventional field
agriculture, hydroponics is sustainable,
efficient and requires: no pesticides, 20%
of the land, 10% of the water, 25% of the
nutrients and fertilizers, and 50% of the
growing time to produce healthier, more
vigorous plants. In short, the Hydroponics
is an attractive and simplified
technology. In soil, biological
decomposition breaks down organic matter
into the basic nutrient that plants feed on.
Water dissolves these nutrients and allows
the roots to absorb. For a plant to receive a
well balanced diet, everything in the soil
must be in perfect balance. Vertical
Farming presents a unique investment
opportunity as it aims to revolutionize our
understanding of food production and
urban development. The profitability of
the Vertical Farm is highly dependent on
generating immediate revenues from a
reliable product. The production includes a
wide variety of easy-to-grow greens.
Vertical farms are mostly multiple storied,
often have a hydroponic as well as drip-
irrigation system and some
contain artificial lights with varied
intensity to mimic the sun. Use of solar
panels can be more innovative and
economical in long-term. These green
hubs are attractive in a variety of ways
since food can be produced with less water
(since it just recirculates), creates less
waste (which are mostly recycled or
decomposed or fortified) and takes up less
space than traditional farming,
ultimately leaving a smaller footprint on
the environment [33].
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Fig. 14. A Typical Hydroponics With Drip Connections.

Fig. 15. The Vertical Harvest Farm is a Three-Story Hydroponic Greenhouse on a 30 foot by
150 foot Plot of Land in Jackson, Wyoming. The Company is Capable of Producing more
than 37,000 pounds of Greens, 4,400 pounds of Herbs and 44,000 pounds of Tomatoes.
Photo Credit: Vertical Harvest.

.
Fig. 16. Industrial Vertical Faming (Sky-Green Project) in Singapore.
Image Courtesy Sky Greens.

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Urban Agriculture and Vertical Farming Technology in Agropolis A.N.Sarkar
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Fig. 17. Inside View of Industrial Vertical Faming (Sky-Green Project) in Singapore.
Image Courtesy MND Singapore.

Fig. 18. Inside View of Industrial Vertical Faming (Sky-Green Project) in Singapore.
Image Courtesy MND Singapore.

Fig. 19. A Vertical Farming System Is Housed in a Protected Environment of PVC Roofing.
Image Courtesy MND Singapore

VERTICAL FARMING IN per second to ensure uniform distribution

SINGAPORE: A CASE STUDY
This vertical farming system, called “A-
Go-Gro” technology, grows vegetables in
A-shaped towers, each of six meters tall.
These modular A-frames are quick to
install and easy to maintain. Each tower
consists of 22 to 26 tiers of growing
troughs, which are rotated around the
aluminium tower frame at a rate of 1mm
of sunlight, good air flow and irrigation for
all the plants
The rotation system does not need an
electrical generator. It is powered by a
unique gravity aided water-pulley system
that uses only one litre of water, which is
collected in a rain-water fed overhead
reservoir. This method also boasts a very

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 International Journal of Town Planning and Management
low carbon footprint as the energy needed
to power one A-frame is the equivalent of
illuminating just one 60-watt light bulb.
The water powering the frames is recycled
and filtered before returning to the plants.
All organic waste on the farm is
composted and reused.
The vertical farming system is housed in a
protected environment of PVC roofing and
netted walls to enable cultivation of
tropical leafy vegetables under natural
sunlight, all year round. All these
efficiencies ensure that production costs
are kept low. Operational costs include
raw materials like soil and seed and
electricity to pump the water driving the
structures. But electricity costs come to
only $3.00 per month per structure.
This farming system generates
significantly higher yields than traditional
growing methods — they are safe, of high
qualify, fresh and delicious. Large
varieties of tropical vegetables are grown,
such as, Chinese cabbage, spinach, lettuce,
xia bai cai, bayam, kang kong, cai xin, gai
lan, nai bai, etc. As the farm expands, Sky
Greens intends to grow more vegetables.
The whole system has a footprint of only
about 60 square feet, or the size of an
average bathroom. A total of 120 such
towers have been erected in Kranji, 14
miles from Singapore’s central business
district, with plans for 300 more, which
Fig. 20. Harvesting of Verti-crops in a Vertical Farming Unit in Singapore.
Image Courtesy MND Singapore
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would allow the farm to produce two tons
of vegetables per day. Ng wants to build
over 2,000 towers in the next few years.
He also has plans to sell this technology to
other countries with a price tag of $10,000
for each tower.
Sky-Green’s venture is being actively
supported by the Government of Singapore
sine the city is surrounded by the eco-
clusters of a sizable number of urban farms
making the city as a typical Agropolis of
enviable global model. Singapore has
year-round temperatures of around 86
degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius)
and the farm is set in an open area
designated by the government as an agro-
technology park, miles away from the
shadow of city skyscrapers. These
competitive advantages are fully exploited
to be globally competitive.[34-39]
POSITIVE OUTCOME
Sky Greens stringently adopts green
technologies to achieve the 3R (reduce,
reuse and recycle). This also helps to
achieve sustainability for the good of the
environment and to grow safe, high quality
and fresh vegetables for consumers. The
small amount of energy and water needed
to grow vegetables, and the close
proximity of the consumer potentially
reduces transportation costs, carbon
dioxide emissions and risk of spoilage.
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Fig. 21. Harvesting of Verti-Crops in a Vertical Farming Unit in Singapore.

Image Courtesy MND Singapore.

Fig. 22. Fertigation of Verti-Crops in a Vertical Farming Unit in Singapore.

Image Courtesy MND Singapore

The vegetables grown in the Vertical THE FUTURE VISION

Farming centres are harvested everyday
and delivered almost immediately to retail
outlets using mostly the cool-chais to help
enhance the shelf-life and retail value in
the market. Although Sky-greens’
vegetables cost about ten percent more
than the imported vegetables, they are
literally flying of the selves with
consumers happy to buy Singapore-grown
produce. To put it in simple plain words:
as one of the consumer mentions,”The
prices are still reasonable and the
vegetables are very fresh and very crispy.”
Every day vegetables are shipped into
Singapore from neighboring countries like
Malaysia, Indonesia, and from far off
countries such as China, US and countries
from Europe. The Singapore government,
in order to cut down on this dependency,
has an objective of reaching 10 percent
local production of leafy vegetables. The
current figure stands at 7 percent. This
initiative of vertical farming along with the
existing 37 vegetable farms will definitely
help to reach the 10 percent local
production target. This will not only

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